1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a fiber cutting device, particularly to a fully-automated optical fiber cutter.
2. Background Art
Optical fiber cutters are used for cutting fibers which are as fine as a hair. The cut fiber has a flat surface under several hundred fold magnifications. Only when the two cut fibers have flat incisions could they be fused with electric arc discharge. The common steps of using an optical fiber cutter are as follows:                1. Strip away the surface coating of the fiber using a fiber stripper, leaving about 30-40 mm, and then wrap the optical fiber with an alcohol-soaked cotton to clean the optical fiber;        2. Open the cover of an optical fiber clamp, and open the upper cover of a fiber cutter. Put the stripped fiber in the V-groove of the fiber clamp. Operator can adjust the length of the cut fiber as needed;        3. Press down the cover of the fiber clamp to fix the fiber;        4. Close the upper cover of the fiber cutter and insure that the end faces of the fibers are in a straight line;        5. Push the blade carrier to cut the fiber;        6. Open the upper cover of the fiber cutter, and pull back the blade carrier;        7. Rotate the knob on the collector to collect the waste fiber;        8. Take out the cut fiber carefully to avoid any damage to the end face of the fiber.        
Along with the development and improvements of the fiber cutter products, some manufacturers have developed some products for simplifying the operation steps outlined above. For example, step 6 described above, pulling back the blade carrier, may be omitted, by for example having connector on the cover of the fiber cutter to engage the blade carrier, thereby when the cover of the fiber cutter is opened, the connector pushes the blade carrier back to the original ready position. However, the above described Step 3, Step 4, Step 5, and the operation of opening the up cover of the fiber cutter in Step 6 are unavoidable. In other words, there is no fully-automated optical fiber cutter in the existing technology, and all the automatic optical fiber cutters are semi-automatic.